After giving it our all this Lent, fasting like those people who go on hunger strikes, emptying our bank accounts to give to the poor, and praying like the saints up in the mountains for days on end, we finally come to the most sublime moment of the year, Holy Week. Now if that exaggerated intro wasn’t for you, which is most likely the case, it was still meant to arouse a bit of an introspection, an examination of conscience if you will, as to how intensely we committed to the beautiful grace and process of conversion through penitential living. If anyone is thinking, “Man, I kinda really bombed Lent this year, and didn’t do anything really out of the ordinary. Shame on me!” Don’t worry! Most of us probably are thinking the same thing and it could be something we may want to place before the Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The good news is that for at least this week, we can up our ante or better yet, go all in! Except we’re not betting on anything other than if we commit, we will come out of this week all the better for it, and that’s not even a bet. It’s more like physics. It’s bound to happen, yet, always through God’s grace and mercy.
Palm Sunday is the first day of Holy Week. The first and second readings are the same each year, but the entrance Gospel and the Passion account are taken from a different Gospel: Year A, Matthew; Year B, Mark; Year C, Luke. On Good Friday the Passion account is taken from John’s Gospel.
We should try to understand what will happen throughout this entire week as the “Paschal Mystery”. It actually encompasses the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as his ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
We will be experiencing a number of moods in just this day’s readings since there is joy in Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, where the acclaim resounded in the streets and palms were laid at his feet, or his donkey’s feet… some may say he borrowed the donkey, but really, if you created the universe and everything else unseen, isn’t it all yours at the end of the day? Hence the humility of Jesus, and how powerful is every detail of the gospel in showing us this. We marvel at the tremendous care and respect with which Jesus promises to send that precious little donkey back to its owner safe and sound: If any one says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, “The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately” Mark 11:3. Again, although as God he is the principal owner of all things, yet he gently promises to return the animal back to its owner.
The people are filled with a spirit of praise:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
This is a joy we have retained during the Eucharistic Prayer at every Mass. Very soon in the readings we begin to see darkness and evil begin to take its positioning so as to try to thwart God’s plans. We see Jesus being given into the hands of vicious groups of authorities and soldiers, and he will be going through a barrage of insults, beatings, ignominies and all of this will eventually lead to the most excruciating pain. Yet the second reading from Paul to the Philippians details the mind that was in Christ, which ought to be in us as well:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…[He] emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…” Philippians 2:5-7.
Jesus who was God from all eternity, empties himself and humbly assumes not only a true human nature, but he embraces the way of servitude, where the Greek word Paul uses is “dulos” which means slave.
This is the love which he himself says is the greatest of all forms of love—the kind that places self-interest to the side, and lays down its life for its friends. And to all who imitate this kind of love, like him, he promised that they would be raised up and granted entrance into eternal glory, but back to our introduction… am I willing to fight the good fight and really invest myself? This is the trial of faith. How much should I be committed? Because a flood of thoughts begins to enter our minds, and doubts of all kinds, as soon as we try to commit.
Jesus enters Jerusalem, and immediately he heads to the temple, but by then it is late. Too late to do what was burning inside him to do—to cleanse it of all impurity so as to restore it to a condition pleasing to God and respectful of who he is. This will happen therefore, tomorrow, on Monday of Holy Week. In the meanwhile, Jesus will be making his way back to Bethany. Each day until Holy Thursday in fact, Jesus will be traversing back and forth to Jerusalem with his disciples, and each day is packed with spiritual lessons for us to delve into so as to grow in our life-giving, joy-producing, peace-bearing, strength-wielding, soul-sanctifying relationship with God. Come back to see what happens on each of these incredible last days of the earthly life of Jesus.
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